Rooster Linked To Black Magic Ties Up Traffic

February 2, 1991

DELRAY BEACH -- A live black rooster and a yellow bowl of food stopped traffic at a intersection in the southwest section when Haitian motorists would not drive past what they thought was a black-magic curse, police said.

A patrol officer was flagged down on Thursday evening and told there was a problem at Southwest Eighth Avenue and Seventh Street. When he arrived, he found traffic backed up in several directions, the police report said.

In the middle of the intersection was the rooster and a bowl of cookies, bananas, apples, coconut, rice, beans and cheese curls.

The rooster`s feet were bound with red thread, and red thread was sewn into the skin of the rooster`s back.

Witnesses told the officer the chicken was part of a black-magic curse and said the bound feet meant the person cursed would receive great bodily harm but not death. The red thread meant the person would bleed severely, the police report said.